No, appointing a qualified person just means they have been determined to have the skills required to do the job. It doesn't mean they'll actually be good at it. For example, Fiorina was qualified to run HP (education, experience, etc) but ran it into the ground.

Yeah, it's English bulldogs. But the reason is pretty much the opposite of what this "study" claims - it's not a case of caesareans allowing genes for narrow pelvises to stay in the population, it's a case of selective breeding changing the shape of the dogs. Deliberate breeding, not a side-effect of too many caesareans.

For example: appointing an unqualified person to a position of power because that person's actions are likely to benefit you, even though those actions may not be best for the country.

But that would be just as corrupt if the person was qualified - it's not their qualification or lack thereof that makes it corruption, its the fact that they're being appointed to benefit you, rather than the country.

Isn't giving people who are unqualified positions of power the textbook definition of corruption?

Uh, no? Giving people positions of power in exchange for favours, or due to pre-existing relationships (e.g. nepotism) are textbook definitions of corruption. Their qualification or lack their of is irrelevant to whether the appointment is corrupt or not.

All I know about this particular incident is from the link the parent provided, but that doesn't seem to be the case - nothing indicates he had a weapon, or acted physically aggressive. The description most often used in the article is "tirade".

The man can be heard in the video shouting a wide range of racist insults, and at one point, he even raises his fist in a salute and shouts: "White power!" At another moment in the video, the man pulls out his phone and stands directly in front of Duhra.

It really does seem like he was charged with assault for a "racist tirade", which isn't entirely unbelievable, given it happened in Canada.

You are free to be as racist as you want, and to shout it to the world. One person did, and while hate charges were considered, they did not apply [ctvnews.ca]. He was just charged with simple assault.

Seriously? That's even worse. He was charged with "assault" - a word which, everywhere else in the world, implies physical violence - for *saying* something. That's the stupidest thing I've heard in...well, in the last 45 minutes, but most of those things were said by moronic teenagers on the internet, not the legislated code of laws of a purportedly civilized country.

Bleaching intensity decreased along a southerly gradient. While most reefs exhibited some degree of bleaching, this bleaching varied in intensity (from less than 10% to over 90% community bleaching) and was patchy throughout most of the management area.

Did that bleaching gradient correlate with a similar temperature gradient? Sea temperatures have risen less than a degree centigrade since the 1800s; if coral reefs are *that* sensitive to temperature changes, they're probably screwed either way - humanity might be speeding it up, but the world's still on a warming trend absent human impact too. It's sad, but organisms that cannot adapt to changing environments die.

The problem with this, is that it's actually not in any state's benefit to do so. If you're a winner-takes-all state, then the stakes are high, and the candidates need to pay attention to you. If you're a proportional state, then campaigning there is only going to net you a handful of votes - there'll be a large core that stays for each party, with a relatively small number of votes attached to the swing voters. There's no real incentive for the candidates to pay any attention to you whatsoever.

In order for that to work, it'd have to be federally mandated and enforced, which would be problematic in itself.

It is the exact same thing they do with gerrymandering. They go out of their way to draw the map such that there is as few democratic districts as possible, and the democrats there win elections by very high margins, while there is as many republican districts as possible.

Right, it's always "Republicans" gerrymandering, and the poor, unblemished Democrats who are victims of it.